US International Nuclear Energy Policy: Change And Continuity
The Centre for International Governance InnovationNuClear eNerGy FuTureS PaPerSThe Nuclear Energy Futures ProjectUS InternationalNuclear Energy Policy:Change and ContinuityMIlES A. PoMPErNuclear Energy Future s Pap e r No. 10Janu a ry 2010An ele ctronic v e rsion of this pap e r is available for do wnload a t:www.cigionline.orgAddressing International Governance Challenges
Nuclear energy Futures PaperAbstractCIGI's Nuclear Energy Futures ProjectThe renewed interest in and activities related to nuclearpower worldwide have raised concerns about proliferation,safety and security. The obama administration is constructing policies that are at the same time consistentwith and different from those of the Bush administration.For example, the administration is proceeding with effortsto win support for tighter rules on sensitive nuclear technologies in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and toestablish international nuclear fuel banks and other supplyassurances. By contrast, the fate of the Global NuclearEnergy Partnership (GNEP), a centrepiece of the Bushadministration’s nuclear approach, is still to be determined.However, concerns such as enhancing safeguards andsecurity and efforts against nuclear terrorism will be integralto President obama’s international nuclear energy policies.CIGI’s Nuclear Energy Futures Project is chairedby CIGI distinguished fellow louise Fréchette anddirected by CIGI senior fellow Trevor Findlay,Director of the Canadian Centre for Treaty Complianceat the Norman Paterson School of InternationalAffairs, Carleton University, ottawa. The project isresearching the scope of the purported nuclear energyrevival around the globe over the coming two decadesand its implications for nuclear safety, security andnonproliferation. A major report to be published in2010 will advance recommendations for strengtheningglobal governance in the nuclear field for considerationby Canada and the international community. Thisseries of papers presents research commissioned bythe project from experts in nuclear energy or nuclearglobal governance. The resulting research will be usedas intellectual ballast for the project report.We encourage your analysis and commentary andwelcome your thoughts. Please visit us online at www.cigionline.org to learn more about the Nuclear EnergyFutures Project and CIGI’s other research programs.CIGI’s Nuclear Energy Futures Project is being conducted in partnershipwith the Centre for Treaty Compliance at the Norman Paterson Schoolof International Affairs, Carleton University, ottawa.ISSN 1919-2134The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect the views of The Centre for International GovernanceInnovation or its Board of Directors and /or Board of Governors.Copyright 2010 The Centre for International Governance Innovation.This work was carried out with the support of The Centre forInternational Governance Innovation (CIGI), Waterloo, ontario, Canada(www.cigionline.org). This work is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-Non-commercial – No Derivatives license. To view thislicense, visit (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/). Forre-use or distribution, please include this copyright notice.
The Centre for International Governance InnovationIntroductionAs the obama administration settles into office, it is beginning to construct a set of policies intended to manage arevival of interest in nuclear power worldwide so as tominimize proliferation, safety and security risks. Thesepolicies represent both change and continuity from thepolicies of the Bush administration. President Barackobama has moved forward with a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates (UAE)that the Bush administration signed in its final days, whileslow-rolling one with russia. In both cases, broader foreignpolicy objectives have played a larger role relative to narrower energy concerns. The new administration is pushingforward with its predecessor’s efforts to win support fortighter rules on sensitive nuclear technologies in theNuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and establish internationalnuclear fuel banks and other supply assurances. obamaintends to scale back, refocus and possibly eliminate theGlobal Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a centrepieceof its predecessor’s international nuclear energy approach.At the same time, he intends to emphasize other concerns,such as enhancing nuclear safety, security and safeguards,and linking an effort against nuclear terrorism more tightlyto his international nuclear energy policies.Both the obama and Bush administrations’ policies havebeen driven in large measure by two events that occurredin 2002-2003: revelations of Iran’s clandestine uraniumenrichment program and the discovery of the A.Q. Khanblack market nuclear network. In the wake of the 9/11terrorist attacks, the discoveries prompted concerns thatever more countries would obtain access to the sensitivenuclear technologies of uranium enrichment and spentfuel reprocessing, which can both produce fuel for nuclearpower plants and fissile material for nuclear weapons.They prompted leaders such as Presidents Bush andobama, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)Director General Mohamed ElBaradei and others to lookfor new ways to stop the spread of these technologies.In doing so, both Bush and obama have struggled to findan appropriate mix of international rules, technologyalternatives, and incentives and disincentives that wouldprevent additional countries from gaining access to thesesensitive technologies.Bush’s approach relied more on technology and attemptsby major nuclear suppliers to impose new internationalrules on other states. In a February 11, 2004, speechPresident Bush called on governments to limit the rightof states to possess enrichment or reprocessing technology.(Bush, 2004). Bush also sought to win support from theNSG and the G8 to prevent such technology transfers tonew countries. His administration sought to convince nonnuclear-weapon states to accept strengthened (IAEA)inspection and accounting procedures (“safeguards”) toprevent nuclear fuels and technology from being divertedto weapons. Under GNEP, Bush administration officialssought to transform an existing research program onadvanced spent fuel reprocessing techniques (the AdvancedFuel Cycle Initiative) into a means of minimizing thedual-use dilemma of enrichment and reprocessing. TheBush’s administration’s original vision of nuclear fuelbanks would only have granted access to those countriesthat renounced enrichment and reprocessing.The shortcomings of this strategy were evident before theend of Bush’s second term and the administration’s effortsto limit the spread of sensitive nuclear technology mettwo sets of objections. one objection was on principle:some non-nuclear-weapon states saw the initiative as anattempt to restrict their rights to peaceful nuclear technology under Article IV of the NPT. The other was onAuthor BiographyMiles A. Pomper is a senior research associate at theJames Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of theMonterey Institute of International Studies. Previously,he served as editor of Arms Control Today and lead foreignpolicy reporter for CQ Weekly, where he covered the fullrange of foreign policy issues, including arms control andproliferation concerns. He has also worked at the legi-SlateNews Service and written several book chapters andanalytical articles for publications such as the ForeignService Journal and the Houston Chronicle. Mr. Pomperonce served as a foreign service officer with the USInformation Agency, and was assistant information officerand spokesperson of the US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.Mr. Pomper holds a masters degree in internationalaffairs from Columbia University and a master’s degreein journalism from Northwestern University.
Nuclear energy Futures Papereconomic grounds: the non-nuclear-weapon states arguedthat the Bush administration was using a spurious nonproliferation argument to cover up its true rationale:advancing the commercial interests of enrichment companies in the advanced nuclear states. In some ways, theeffort backfired, encouraging countries such as Argentina,Canada and South Africa to state their interest in enrichment in order to ensure they would not be cut off fromfuture opportunities to profit in this sector. other countries,such as Australia, publicly weighed the possibility.also recommended that spent fuel reprocessing shouldonce again become integral to the US nuclear program,although it had been largely discouraged by Americanpolicy makers since the 1974 Indian use of reprocessednuclear fuel to test a “peaceful nuclear explosive.” Thepolicy was changed despite the ostensible success of theprevious effort, which encouraged a decline in spent fuelreprocessing worldwide (lyman and von Hippel, 2008).Facing these problems, the Bush administration began totest some new approaches in its waning days. obama haspicked up on a few of these alternative approaches, whiledropping some of the earlier Bush ideas. For example,obama endorsed the creation of an international fuelbank which would not require recipients to renounceenrichment and reprocessing, an approach ultimatelysupported by Bush and the previous Democratic Congress.He has continued to support a Bush administration attemptto reach a compromise on new NSG rules that will betighter than current standards, but would not be as strictas those Bush initially proposed. And he backed a bilateralnuclear cooperation deal the Bush administration negotiated with the UAE (albeit with a few changes), whichmany considered a model for efforts to contain proliferationin the Middle East. in the context of developing advanced nuclear fuelcycles and next generation technologies for nuclearenergy, the United States should reexamine its policiesto allow for research, development and deploymentof fuel conditioning methods (such as pyroprocessing)that reduce waste streams and enhance proliferationresistance. In doing so, the United States will continue to discourage the accumulation of separatedplutonium worldwide.At the same time, the obama administration has phasedout key areas of GNEP and de-emphasized others. Bycalling for a nuclear-weapons-free world and takingpractical steps in that direction, obama has sought tocounter criticism from non-nuclear-weapon state signeesof the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that the UnitedStates under the Bush administration demanded more ofthem even though Washington was not meeting thetreaty’s disarmament requirements. Nonetheless, whetherobama’s approach will be more successful than Bush’s inmeeting their common goal is still an open question.The Bush Administration’s ApproachThe Global Nuclear energy PartnershipSoon after taking office, the Bush administration turned itsattention to energy policy, with Vice President Dick Cheneyleading a National Energy Policy Development (NEPD)Group. The group placed particular emphasis on nuclearpower, urging that it be expanded in the United States“as a major component of our national energy policy”(National Energy Policy Development Group, 2001). Itp.2In particular, the NEPD Group recommended that: The United States should also consider technologies(in collaboration with international partners withhighly developed fuel cycles and a record of closecooperation) to develop reprocessing and fuel treatment technologies that are cleaner, more efficient,less waste-intensive, and more proliferation-resistant(National Energy Policy Development Group, 2001).The effort appeared aimed less at addressing nonproliferation concerns than finding some means of handlingthe tons of spent fuel accumulating at US nuclear plantsbecause of the federal government’s failure to open along-term geological repository. Under the 1982 WastePolicy Act, the US government was supposed to beginaccepting civilian-used nuclear fuel for disposition in 1998.Utilities have successfully sued the federal governmentfor failing to meet its responsibilities, winning up toUS 500 million in damages annually with estimates thattotal costs could reach well over US 60 billion (NuclearEnergy Advisory Committee, 2008: 9). The administrationargued that using reprocessing technology to remove someof the elements of spent fuel with the greatest radiotoxicityand which produce the greatest heat would allow more fuelto be placed in the proposed Yucca Mountain repository,particularly if newer reprocessing technologies such as“UrEX ” and “pyroprocessing” were employed.Administration officials also contended that the newerreprocessing technologies, which they envisioned ultimately providing fuel for a new generation of “fast spectrum”reactors, were more “proliferation-resistant” than traditional
The Centre for International Governance InnovationPUrEX technologies.1 PUrEX had been designed by theUnited States to extract pure plutonium for nuclearweapons. In PUrEX reprocessing, spent fuel is dissolvedin hot nitric acid. Plutonium and uranium of high purityare extracted separately by bubbling an organic solventthrough the mix. Under UrEX , five solvent extractionprocesses are used to separate spent fuel into seven separate fractions. In a typical variant, one fraction includesplutonium and neptunium (another transuranic element)(Vandegrift et al., 2004). In pyroprocessing, spent fuel iscut into pieces and heated and turned into a powder. Thisprocess also burns off volatile fission products such asKrypton and Xenon as well as some of the semi-volatilefission products such as Iodine and Cesium. (The hotterthe process the more that is burned off). The spent fueloxide powder is transformed into a metal and then put ina molten bath of lithium and Potassium Chloride salts.An electric current is then run through the salts to dissolvethe metal and to separate elements in several stages,beginning with the recovery of uranium from the moltensalt bath. This uranium recovery operation is continueduntil the concentration of transuranics such as plutonium,neptunium, americium, and curium in the molten saltreaches a level where they too can be separated from thebath, along with a significant amount of fission products,such as cerium, neodymium, and lanthanum making theresulting material less usable in weapons. It can then bedirectly fabricated into metallic fast reactor fuel withoutany further processing or purification. This process doesnot produce pure separated plutonium. In both cases, theBush administration claimed that retaining other elementsin this material along with the plutonium could providea new type of fuel while being less attractive for weaponsproduction than pure plutonium, thus discouragingproliferation (oNEST, 2003).This argument, however, has been heavily criticized. Inthe case of Urex , some observers noted that the new fuelwould be much less proliferation-resistant than spentfuel that was not reprocessed. They claimed that leavingplutonium mixed with such minor actinides as neptuniumwould offer little proliferation resistance. Neptunium, forexample, is usable in weapons and is less radioactivethan plutonium: “Adding it to plutonium therefore wouldnot decrease at all the attractiveness of the mixture forweapon purposes,” wrote Edward lyman and Frank vonHippel. If uranium was also included in the mix, they1Fast spectrum reactors (also known as fast reactors) are nuclear reactors that tryto utilize more of the neutrons in a sample of uranium (the more numerous U-238neutrons as well as the much rarer U-235) by operating at higher energy levels.Unlike common light water reactors in North America, for example, they do notuse moderators such as water or hydrogen to slow neutrons down.wrote, “the uranium dilutant could be separated out withvery simple chemical processing” (lyman and vonHippel, 2008).In contrast, these critics acknowledged that “pyroprocessing does produce a mixture that is more radioactive thanthe pure plutonium produced by PUrEX.” But they saidthat “the difference is not great enough to justify claimsthat it is significantly more proliferation resistant andcertainly not great enough to justify assertions by someUS officials that ‘pyroprocessing is not reprocessing.’”They further argued that pyroprocessing should not becompared to PUrEX, but to the current practice of simplystoring spent fuel. In that context, they claimed “pyroprocessing appears anything but proliferation resistant”(lyman and von Hippel, 2006; Aryaeinejad et. al., 2006;Wymer et.al., 1992: 80).others, however, dispute these criticisms. As one supporterof pyroprocessing wrote:Although the resulting product contains recoveredplutonium it also contains too many transuranicimpurities from pyroprocessing to be suitable materialfor a bomb; the material is thermally and radioactivelyfar too hot and generates far too many spontaneousneutrons. Producing suitable bomb material wouldrequire further purification of plutonium product,which in turn would require an additional wet processing facility like a PUrEX plant (Park, 2009).Still, both supporter and opponents would agree, as lymanand Von Hippel argued, that unlike with UrEX whoseproduct might be used in current nuclear reactors (aspart of mixed-oxide fuel),“[p]yroprocessing suffers from a clear practicalproblem: it is designed to treat metal fuel for liquidsodium-cooled reactors and is not optimal for theceramic uranium-oxide fuel used by the light waterreactors that are today’s standard reactors.”Nonetheless, the US Energy Department moved forwardin 2003 with the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), aprogram to develop the new reprocessing technologiesand build on ongoing research. The republican-controlledCongress expressed clear support for the program in itsearly days, topping up funding and granting it statutoryauthorization in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, includingsupport for international cooperation (Holt, 2008: 5-6).In 2006, President Bush sought to address both the problemsof nuclear waste and the newly urgent nonproliferationp.3
Nuclear energy Futures Paper#!##considerations raised by Iran and A.Q. Khan by initiating* (*' !& X, &' ' 1X, * , & X, !*X 0! ,!& X, &' VGNEP. At its heart were the AFCI research efforts to' 1CX ! X *'-(X!& X * & DX ( &X & X - ! DX/ !develop more advanced technologies for reprocessing. X-%- , X ,'& X ' X ( * , X !.! X ( -,'&!-%X spent fuel. Under GNEP, advanced nuclear energy states( *,X' X V' X* (*' !& X '*, X- !& XCwould provide developing non-nuclear-weapon stateswithfreshfuel *&andreactorsin return for-&the X,resultant&X'**X,'X*X ! ! &,X -(('*,X,'X X!&, *Vspentfuelsolongasthosedevelopingstatesagreed& ,!'& X !&!,! ,!. DX , X - X %!&! ,* ,!'&X %X %not"'*to '&engagein enrichmentor reprocessing. !'& X,'X', X *'-( DX! -,!& X, X( Advanced*,& * !(N nuclearstateswould eventually(-*('*,X&'&(*' !* ,!'&X &reprocess!, CX * & thisX/ material X (( innew, facilitiesusing ,!'&X'(the newer*X, X %!&! ,*& “proliferation-resistant”X, X/ 1X,'X -(('*,X -** &,technologiesas UrEX .,&' ' ! such DX X '&X X !* 1X%!&'*X& X/ * X%,'X & -* X, ,X(-* X ( * , X( -,'&!-%X/ X&',X(*' - CNot onlydidfrom/'- nonX!, X this'- proposalX '( X run* &intoX &objectionsX *X ' '*, Xnuclear-weaponstatesonphilosophicalandeconomic. &,- 1X%'. X,'X& / *X,&' ' ! CX &X( *,! - *DXgrounds,including, X . but& someX&- more*X advancedX% % countries,* X/ * oO . '(X & X %'& ,* , DX!&, * ! DX . & X, sign&' '! the'*XeffortGNEP’semphasistypes* 1 because !& X ( &,X- X '*X( '1%on&,Xnewer!&X ! !,! X , of,reprocessingthreatened their DX866 JCexisting technol'X&',X ( technology* , X(-* X( -,'&!-%PXIogy. This group included France, Japan and russia, which'%accumulatedX &'&V&- *V/('&X , , X / civil* X %' !! X 1X ,ashavetons ofseparatedplutoniumXN X&'&V!& !& XO ,, % using&,X' X(*!&!( Ppart* of,X'decades-oldreprocessingeffortsPUrEX./ ! X ! X, ,X( *,! !( ,!& X '-&,*! XO/'- X&',X !.In-(Xordersufficientlaunch&1Xto*!garner, DPX !%( !!, 1Xsupport* **!& toX ,'X, !*X the*,!inter X*! , CXON* X&',X'-&,*! X,'X ! &XmadeX , ,major% &,nationalinitiative,the #!&BushX administrationconcessions to both groups, diluting the partnership’spurported nonproliferation benefits. France was appeased, ,X, 1X/! X& . *X &*! X'*X& . *X* (*' DPX ! Xafter the administration opened the way to support current ! , &,X * , *1X' X & * 1X &&! X (-* '&XI '%( *Dtechnologies, as long as fairly minor changes were made866 EX 9JCXX %'. X '&.!&X '% X '-&,*! X - X to ensure that pure separated plutonium was not produced.- ,* ! X ,'X ! &X '&,'X , X , , % &,X ' X (*!& !( X / &The White House hoped France and her cohorts would, 1X / * X -&. ! X !&X (, % *X 866 CX '-, X '* Deventually move to newer technologies. In particular,/ ! X X&X #!& X,'X( * X, X &!, X , , X,'theadvanced nuclear GNEP“develop '/X!,X,'X(1*'(*' X X members- DX 'X !pledged& X, logiesforI '%( *DX866 JCrecycling spent fuel for deployment in facilities that donot'/separate(DoE,2007). *DX, pureX '& plutonium” !'&X/ X!& ! ! &,X,'X/!&X'.*X '-,*! DX / ! XX (* .!'- 1X . '( X &X &*! % &,Somenon-nuclear-weaponmollifiedby the( ! !,1X X( *,X' X!, X&- states*X/ were('& X(*'* %CX! ”( !,1X / X !%!& , X / &X , X / ('& X (*' * %whichsaid that participating“wouldnot, X'give&X!&X7?:CXOX/ * X '& countries*& X, ,X '%X (upanyrights,”implicitlyreferringtotheirArticle, XX * ,!'&X /'- X '& ! ,X /!, X '-*X & ,!'& IV rights.“We’renotX askingcountriesto sign a statement(' ! 1DPX -1 /'&"! DX,X '-&,*1N X%!&* X &thatwill never& *they1X %!&! ,*DX ,' enrichX * ('*,or* Xnever!&X ! reprocess,”&& X '&X (,said% US*AssistantDennis(Pomper,7 DX866 CXOSecretary,X! X X '.of* Energy! &,1X! DX,'X Spurgeon X/!, X'-*X'/&2007a:3).- Thesome countriessuch as&- *X X* move*. X convinced& X - X -(( 1DPX ! 'X )DAustraliato sign ontothe statementof principleswhen, X%!&! ,*1N X& *X(*'* %X !* ,'*DX,' X -, * X'&theySeptember 2007. South Korea,, X were% X unveiled1XI !&*! inDX866 JCwhich has been seeking to persuade the United States to, *Xit '-&,*! X, X %!&! ,*,!'&XX/'- X"'!&X,allowto pyroprocessUS fuel,also'(signedthe initiative( *,& * 2008a).!(X 'X * - CX X , X %!&! ,* ,!'&X /'-&(Pomper,% )* * ' ' )Figure 1: GNEP MembersSenegalSource: Pomper (2008c).p.4
The Centre for International Governance InnovationHowever, the concession was insufficient to win over SouthAfrica, which had previously developed an enrichmentcapability as part of its nuclear weapons program. Thiscapacity was eliminated when the weapons programended in 1994. “We were concerned that some aspects ofthe GNEP declaration would conflict with our nationalpolicy,” Buyelwa Sonjica, the country’s minerals andenergy minister, told reporters in Vienna on September18, 2007. “It is a sovereignty issue, to deal with our ownnuclear fuel reserves and fuel supply,” Tseliso Maqubela,the ministry’s nuclear program director, told reuters onthe same day (Heinrich, 2007).other countries the administration hoped would join thepartnership also refused. As the administration wounddown, it sought to expand GNEP from a couple dozenmembers to as many as 46 countries. only a handful ofadditional countries joined (Pomper, 2008c).Still, GNEP’s international efforts acquired some momentum, with 25 countries eventually joining the group. Thegroup held another ministerial level meeting in September2008. Participants formed a steering committee chaired byEdward McGinnis, a US deputy assistant energy secretary,along with vice chairmen from China, France and Japan.They also established three working groups on issues ofnuclear infrastructure, reliable fuel services and “gridappropriate” reactors.The Infrastructure Development Working Group soughtto address the “infrastructure development challengesfacing countries interested in beginning or expanding anuclear power program, including shortages in humancapital and manufacturing capacity.” A second workinggroup on reliable nuclear fuel services looked at means ofestablishing nuclear fuel banks and nuclear fuel assurances to persuade countries not to engage in their ownuranium enrichment programs. The final working groupfocused on the development of grid-appropriate reactors,which are typically 250-500 megawatt facilities. Suchreactors are considered (though not yet proven) moreaffordable and practical for the limited electric grids andneeds of developing countries than the 1,000 megawattor so light-water reactors typically sold by the majornuclear reactor manufacturers. A final october 2008ministerial meeting added one further initiative: a call forstates to “pursue new ways to support nuclear energyprojects through finance mechanisms” (GNEP ExecutiveCommittee, 2008).Meanwhile, the US Department of Energy was planningto move forward quickly with an ambitious domestic legto the program. In 2007, Spurgeon said the departmentwas planning to move ahead in 2008 with a decision on a“technology path forward” for GNEP, that is, a choicebetween a UrEX type system and pyroprocessing technology. The approach called for the construction of threetypes of facilities: a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium and other materials from spent reactor fuel andconvert them into a new fuel, an advanced reactor to usethe new fuel, and a research and development facility.Spurgeon said industry studies proposed that reprocessing facilities begin operation between 2018 and 2028 andthat prototype fast reactors be deployed between 2018and 2025. The pace and scale of the proposed effort cameunder withering criticism from Capitol Hill and fromoutside experts who claimed the energy department wasmoving too quickly to attempt building a commercialscale reprocessing facility based on unproven technology(Pomper, 2008b).The House of representatives, which came underDemocratic control in 2007, was particularly critical of theprogram. In a June 2007 report, the House AppropriationsCommittee said it “does not support the Department’srushed, poorly defined, expansive, and expensive GlobalNuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) proposal, particularly the administration’s intention to move quickly tocommercial-scale reprocessing facilities.” Both the reportand a companion Senate bill called for the administration to focus instead on research. The House report alsodismissed claims of GNEP’s proliferation resistance as“unpersuasive and largely contradictory” (US House ofrepresentatives, 2007).An october 29, 2007, report by a National researchCouncil (NrC) panel was commissioned by the energydepartment. The panel sided strongly with the critics,concluding that the department should “not move forward”with the domestic leg of GNEP, particularly efforts todevelop new commercial-scale facilities for reprocessingand burning a new type of nuclear fuel. Citing a lack ofurgency and appropriate technical knowledge, the NrCpanel called on the department to return to an earliercourse and conduct a “less aggressive research program”(Committee on review of DoE’s Nuclear Energy researchand Development Program, 2007).The NrC panel claimed that making such a decision duringthe next year would be unnecessarily hasty. “Domesticwaste management, security, and fuel supply needs arenot adequate to justify early deployment of commercialscale reprocessing and fast-reactor facilities,” the panelwrote. In particular, it was not clear if a second wasterepository would be needed. The panel also argued thatthe knowledge of appropriate technologies was notp.5
Nuclear energy Futures Papersufficient to move to commercial-scale facilities; the program would be far more expensive than proceeding withthe current “once-through” system that stores rather thanreprocesses spent fuel, a conclusion backed by theCongressional Budget office in testimony before the Senatepanel. The NrC panel noted that “qualifying” the newfuel – ensuring it could be used appropriately in the reactor –would take many years. Instead, the panel advocatedreturning to a lower-level research program to providemore basic information before choosing a path forward.The energy department responded to this criticism bytrying a different approach to quickly deploy reprocessingtechnologies, settling on a two-stage process. Under thisplan, while AFCI looked at longer-term, more proliferationresistant types of reprocessing, the Department of Energywould move ahead with using current reprocessing technologies. In an october 2007 interview, Spurgeon said thedepartment had decided to attempt signing a contract in2008 for facilities “using current technologies, since moreadvanced technologies are not yet proven on a commercialsize scale with an appropriate degree of reliability”(Pomper, 2007a: 2).The first stage of the department’s plan would involveco-extraction (CoEX) technologies that are nearly readyfor commercial deployment. These technologies wouldseparate the uranium and plutonium from spent fuel andreprocess them into mixed-oxide (MoX) fuel that can beused in current light water reactors. The aim would be tohave such a fairly basic US reprocessing facility in placeby 2020-2025. A second stage, which DoE officials saidthey did not expect to take place before 2050, wouldinvolve reprocessing spent MoX fuel again, using themore advanced techniques.Critics noted that the first stage would offer few proliferation benefits and might in fact increase proliferationrisks. The resulting uranium could be easily separatedfrom plutonium – mixed-oxide fuel is considered “directuse material” for nuclear weapons by the IAEA becauseof the ease of this conversion.Among the private critics of the administration’s proposalwere the energy department’s own scientists, accordingto robert rosner, director of the Argonne Nationallaboratory. At a conference in April 2009, rosner sai
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